Welcome To The Hermit's Desk

* It's extremely unnerving to hear the unmistakable sound of someone using a hand saw in the upstairs neighbor's bathroom. For hoourrs. It also gets so quiet sometimes that I can hear him pee. That's also a little unnerving.

This one is an oddball anyways. The only time I have ever seen him is when he escapes to his car, to sit in his car and listen to music, also for hooours.

It's possible he has a lover that is (1) also a late sleeper like Jesse, so he does as much as he can in the mornings in the bathroom to keep things quiet. (They are the only inner room in these apartments with a door that closes) (2) His lover is a total beast, thus chasing him out of his house for respite.

* Two nights ago I stepped outside for a cigarette, to hear the wild titter of a raccoon squealing and the sound of smaller animal (probably a squirrel or rabbit) bleating in absolute distress. It went on long enough to where I said out loud, "Jesus. Just kill it and eat the damn thing."

I don't know whether to be happy that the raccoon got a meal or sad because I heard something dying. Rules of the wild, I guess. Glad I am not a rabbit.

* It used to be that the heavier the makeup, the more wild the colors, the better indication that was of me feeling sexy and like dressing up. While there are plenty, plenty of days now where drawing in even my eyebrows is too much, if I'm headed OUT, heavy makeup is now an indication of "I feel like hell."

But I can, for a little while, at least LOOK normal. (Well, aging-goth and punk rocker makeup normal.)

The right makeup can fool just about any onlooker.

* I've GOT TO, and I mean, GOT TO make good on my long-said promise of learning how to use blush. As much as I've always wished I had porcelain skin, I'm finding lately that I actually kinda dislike looking SO porcelain.

Youtube tutorials it is. (That's how I learn, like, 90% of my active skills. It's how I learned to do nail art. It's how I learned how to properly wear the rockabilly bandanna. It's where I'll learn to put on blush without looking like the Ronald McDonald clown that despairs me so.)

* Things that are affected by joint pain that surprise me:

Playing video games. Nintendo Thumb ain't got SHIT on how my hands and wrists (and elbows? WTF???) feel after half an hour on the console.

And opening bagged cereal. (Seriously, it took me, like, THREE TRIES this morning to break into the cereal bag.) The already open, simply re-zipped bag of cereal, no less.

* Two of my favorite bands are coming next month. Birthday Massacre, which proved to me goth is NOT dead, and Icon For Hire, the one band that has been essential to my illness and recovery.

We had bought Icon For Hire tickets the first time I was hospitalized. Unfortunately, I wound up in the hospital again when they came through town. It's like 20 dollars per ticket for Icon For Hire, but goddamnit, I will somehow get that money for Jesse and I. It'll be a scramble, as their concert is only 7 days away, but I'll get the money somehow. I'll probably ask my father and just be straight up about it. "Hey Dad, life has really sucked for me. Can I bug you for money to go to a couple of concerts?" I LOATHE asking him for money, as he's already paying 500 a month on my student loans, but I'm not going to miss this.

I adore Birthday Massacre, but if I had to choose, it'd be Icon for Hire.

I missed them the first time. I don't want to miss them again.

* Now off to see Pat, who is himself not feeling terribly well and up for only a short visit. For the first time in perhaps all of our lives together, I understand. I truly, truly understand.

We've been friends, close friends, now for 20 YEARS. That's over half my life.

As I said to him one night in IHOP, "Pat, you are the Sam to my Frodo".

(A couple overheard that and turned around to tell me that THAT was one of the most beautiful things he'd ever heard someone say to another. That made both Pat and I laugh and even tear up a bit.)